Today we’d like to introduce you to John Olear.
John, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in the valley as 1 of 4 children to my Nigerian parents. Me and my twin brother were the first two born in America. All of my siblings ended up doing track in college, oldest sister ran at Csun for a year, second oldest at USC and for the Olympics, myself for a year at Azusa Pacific University and my twin at Grand Canyon University. It was my sophomore year in college that I had to find another way to pay for college since the track coach said their budget was too tight for the next year. My friend told me to audition for the gospel choir since my nickname on the track team was happy feet (because I was always singing and dancing). I had never sang in an organized situation before nor had gotten lessons but I auditioned and hell in love with singing and music. Fast forward two years and I got scholarship to finish back at the university for five different choirs and groups, I picked up guitar and piano as well. A talent scout for Disney came to rehearsal and invited me and eight others to sing background at the radio Disney award show in 2016 behind Jordan Smith. It was the first time I was ever on a big stage let alone national television, but I knew then this would be something I’d love to do for a living. That day I decided to pursue music and songwriting.
When I had graduated college, my mom suggested that I become a substitute teacher since a lot of singers and actors do that. My mom herself has been teaching math for 24 years. I became a substitute teacher by day and musician by night, using most of what I earned on studio time and marketing. Three years later, now September 2019, and I have some songs out and a growing social media account of 10k on IG, I decided to make a TikTok account because one of my high school students said “I was too old for TikTok”. I never back down from a challenge, I guess that’s the mamba mentality that has been bread in any true athlete. (Kobe was my biggest role model growing up). Two weeks later, I had 10k followers with a couple of viral videos and then 60k by the end of the month. It was all new to me but I picked up pretty quickly and no other millennial wanted to listen to me when I told them to get the app. By November, I had 100k but by February my growth exploded and I had 1.3 Million followers mostly from a food war series some friends and I started. TikTok changed my life and gave me hope when I felt my career was starting to be stagnant. I’ve met so many people off the app including my current music. There’s been so much that my life journey has been able to teach some of my students. The journey is far from over but definitely grateful for what has come and excited for what’s to come
Has it been a smooth road?
I would definitely say there has been some struggles mentally especially with quarantine. Everyone expects you to be happy once you’ve had growth on social media, but people don’t warn you about waves. My hype came so fast that I thought momentum would be consistent. Most of my ideas involved interacting with others. I was getting 40M views per week mostly from collabs, but once quarantine hit and I had to be alone my views dramatically dropped to 750k a week. Those months were rough, a lot of imposter syndrome, which still plays into effect at times. There will be long stretches that I don’t feel like posting because I know it will “flop”. One of the biggest steps to overcoming this hurdle was learning to be grateful in the circumstances. Comparison is a thief of joy, my growth is going to look different from other people’s growth! I have to stop setting expectations so that my mentality is always one of gratitude rather than disappointment. The views I’m getting now, many people would wish to be getting. It is healthy to take breaks for sure but I shouldn’t let my mood and day be determined by the amounts of views and likes I’m getting that day.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
JAYO is my artist name, it stands for just a young optimist. I came up with the name because my initials are J.O. And sometimes people call me jay when I was hooping. I wanted a short artist name but I wanted it to mean something, so when I thought of an acronym “just a young optimist” came to mind and it was a perfect fit. Anyone that knows me knows how I tend to be really optimistic. I think I’m more of a realist. My track coach in high school would never let us say the word “can’” or “quit”. 10 burpees automatically if we did. So that instilled in me that anything is possible with the right mindset.
I’m a singer-songwriter and my music is mostly fun and optimistic as well. I like to make songs for all ages, something universal your parents and toddlers can listen to. My music tends to be super catchy for the melody while telling a story of my lyrics.
I wrote a graduation song for my students called “way back when” and it’s currently my top played song. They most definitely cried when they heard it!
My song “guacamole” was used by chipotle for a campaign as well so that was really exciting!
My latest release “Summer is Cancelled” is doing pretty well in Australia because summer is just starting there. The song is super poppy and fun, but I’m excited for the unreleased music that’s yet to come. I would for sure say that better songs are on the way so be on the lookout!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Currently, it’s hard to say, we can all hope that live shows are a ting again next summer. But I would hope to be on billboard top 100, maybe top 10 shoots. I’d love to collab with some of my favorite artists including Chance the Rapper, KYLE, Khalid, Justin Beiber, Tobi Lou, Russ and a bunch more. Would definitely want to be full-time in music while still inspiring others. I wouldn’t be afraid to revisit the classroom in some motivational speaking type way!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jayo
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/JAYO.artist
- Other: www.tiktok.com/@jayo
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